I purposefully avoid discussing local matters for two reasons: 1. there’s ample material of which I often know too much, and 2. in light of number one, I try to maintain a decent amount of good juju with my colleagues. I admit I’m not always successful. Thus, this blog’s emphasis has rarely been about matters related to Nevada.
This one is too good to pass up, however. My friend and colleague, Ryan Jerz, is one of Reno’s best bloggers and is certainly one of the most read. He recently had the audacity, as he often does, to comment in the negative. This time, it was about a lawsuit being filed against the local university by a former disgruntled employee*. It seemed harmless enough at the time.
He underestimated the wrath of said disgruntled employee, however, who has since attempted all manner of trying to silence him, up to and including visits over coffee, threat of a lawsuit and, most recently, a cease and desist letter.
Jerz did the right thing, in my opinion. I said if it were me, I would post up everything. He did. And it’s a delicious read.
Transparency, as I’ve mentioned before, is a two-way street. Fortunately, most have seen through the wrath, now put in a more open context by Jerz’ coming out (as it were). Many are offering up donations to his legal defense fund. I donated to him the time of my virtual assistant, who is a paralegal. (Thank you, Kimberly.)
What to take home from this, though, is the few that are defending the disgruntled employee’s bizarre levels of allegation assert a key point: Commenting negatively about somebody constitutes defamation and is therefore grounds for a lawsuit, and presumably, a pot of gold at the end of the trial. One self-proclaimed “legal” defender of the employee claims that:
“She and her attorney have appeared to have made good faith efforts to stop the defamation of her name. Your reaction to continue to ridicule her with malice, harassment, and an invasion of her privacy will earn her a phenomenal judgement from a jury.”
Imagine such a precedent-setting suit, if actually won: Soon, nobody would be allowed to write or say anything negative about anyone else, or it would be considered malice, reckless and would constitute harassment.
Amazing.
*DISCLOSURE: In a previous life, when I worked at the university, I was a first-hand witness to the sleaze-ball tactics of this individual’s attorney. One of his main approaches is to try cases in the press before ever going to court. If he wins in court, which I’m told isn’t often, headlines are made. When he loses, the media isn’t as celebratory. Just last week he was allegedly fined, supposedly for the second time, multiple thousands of dollars for allegedly being in contempt of court after filing more complaints in another case when he was apparently ordered not to by a federal judge. The news media has been mute in response. (Edit April 23, 2008: The Associated Press reported on this today.)
20/20′s John Stossel weighs in with more information on just how out-of-hand legal bullying has become. Enjoy.
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